deserialize protostuff byte array with javascript

Question

I used protostuff to transform to byte array a json input i have. The code in java is:

LinkedBuffer buffer = LinkedBuffer.allocate(1024);
Schema<String> orderSchema = RuntimeSchema.getSchema(String.class);
int i = 1 ;
for(String p:poligonsStr) {               
    buffer.clear();
    byteslist.add(ProtostuffIOUtil.toByteArray(p, orderSchema, buffer));
}

The problem is I don't know the algorithm that is used and how I can decode with the JavaScript client (Node.js). Also I saw there is a very good algorithm called Smile implemented for protostuff in project com.dyuproject.protostuff but I would like to know how to get schema with that library- I didn't manage that yet.

I would like to know what's the best to use: ProtostuffIOUtil or SmileIOUtil? And how to use? And how to decode with JavaScript?

Answer 1

protostuff binary encoding is different from protobuf, and as far as I know there is no JavaScript library to decode protostuff-encoded data at the moment.

smile is not supported by web browsers out of the box, but there are libraries that can decode it.

As for me, there are two optiomal ways how you can encode data on server using Protostuff library, and decode it using JavaScript on client side:

1. Use protobuf encoding, it is good if size of encoded data is important. On server side, you should use ProtobufIOUtil to serialize your data to protobuf binary format. On client side, you can use https://github.com/dcodeIO/ProtoBuf.js/ to decode binary data from server.
2. Use JSON encoding, it is native format for JavaScript and usually it will be parsed faster than binary protobuf-encoded data. On server side, you should use JsonIOUtil (from protostuff-json module) to serialize your data to JSON text format. On client side, it is supported out of the box.

Here is an example how to serialize your POJO into protobuf binary using Protostuff: HelloService.java